Technology

Actually lets break it down, so it is clearer what the accuracy was. I will not talk about the mistranslations, though.

• I have come to the same conclusion as the previous poster. DeepL identifies correctly I agree with them, but fails to pick up the nuance of it. Pretty good.

• I am indirectly taking part in mocking techbros for thinking AI has solved language learning. This is referencing the previous post, so DeepL could not know that without context. It somewhat picks up I am saying AI-stuff has not solved anything.

• It correctly picks up I learned something about language yesterday and that someone fails at it, but it fails to identify I am talking specifically about dialects and fails to clearly convey it is AI that fails. It translates correctly I mistakenly thought the previous thing was true.

• I am saying AI could not properly answer to talking in dialect, referencing indirectly I am talking in dialect in the message. DeepL picks up that I am saying something is failing, but does not convey anything else correctly.

• I'm telling Google was the worst at translating, and that I found that hilarious. DeepL fully fails to translate the meaning, but translates the word "shit" acceptably, and conveys correctly something is funny.

  So what was lost in translation?

• Talking in dialect, and AI failing to translate dialects properly - Core part of the message, so really bad, that it was about dialects, was not conveyed.

• I am laughing at Googles translation abilities being the worst - Fails to convey this completely. Not a core part of the message, but still relatively important information.

• Nuance about thinking before agreeing - Leaving that out does not matter in casual conversation. If this was translation for a more "proper" thing, this could be bad though.

• Mocking techbros - This required context that wasn't offered.

I was just at a networking/research technology conference in Helsinki (TNC26) where the topic of nordic languages— especially minority ones—being under-represented by current automated transcription/translation tools came up in one of the side talks I attended. There's some effort by various European NRENs and universities to train models on these languages so those tools can be more widely available to students, academics, and the public. The talk was about "Scribe" by SUNET (Swedish Research Network) hosting whisper models for this purpose.

That said, I do believe that learning a language by studying, immersion in the culture, and actually having conversations with people who speak it natively is the only way to really experience another language. There's always something lost in translation if you can't internalize a language by living it. In some ways language is one of the parts of the human experience that's unique and irreproducible by LLMs (despite the name). Language is more than rote communication of information; it conveys ideas, emotions, the weight of memory and history.

Also, Finnish is fucking hard lol. I can usually pick up a bit of language wherever I travel, basic phrases usually. But DAMN trying to nail the epiglottal sounds of even "Hyvää yötä" threw me!

I only got to see Helsinki, but it was a beautiful city. The Finnish people I met were lovely with a great dry sense of humor, and I would love to visit again someday.

Kippis